Financial Application Engagement Optimization

Overview
Redesign of an internal financial management application to optimize user engagement, improve overall user sentiment, and establish trust. By systematically identifying friction points and streamlining the user journey, this project successfully drove adoption and achieved a 100% reduction in dedicated support resources.

The Challenge
The application suffered from high frustration, low user engagement, and a low perception of trust, creating a heavy burden on support staff and requiring dedicated support resources to manage user issues. Our team needed to pinpoint the root causes of this frustration, build internal alignment, and prioritize a mix of immediate fixes and sustainable, long-term features.

The Approach & Solution
I led a mixed-methods research initiative—combining user and support technician interviews with app analytics, survey results, and helpdesk ticket trends. By translating these multi-source insights into user personas and a comprehensive experience map, I provided the team with clear alignment on user motivations, key workflow bottlenecks, and high-impact design priorities.

Quick-Win Optimizations
Our team prioritized and implemented immediate, high-impact fixes based on top user complaints—including adding data filtering, creating feature shortcuts, and reducing noisy notifications. These changes quickly boosted satisfaction, turning frustrated users into eager product champions.

Iterative Long-Term Design and Streamlined Core Functionality
I collaborated within the typical agile sprints with the development team to ensure technical feasibility while validating larger feature concepts. I used clickable wireframes, moderated usability testing, and A/B testing to refine complex workflows before final design hand-off with the developers.

By collaborating with the developers, we agreed to use the Material Design System and components. This sped up our design and development process so we could quickly test designs and deploy updated features. Major feature upgrades included a more intuitive user guidance, visual progress indicators, and a highly simplified file and data importing process.

The Impact
Zero Dedicated Support Needed. Within six months of launch, the product improvements completely eliminated the need for dedicated support resources by resolving the core usability flaws driving helpdesk tickets.

Post-launch analytics showed a measurable, long-term increase in user engagement alongside significantly higher user satisfaction scores.

Core Contributions
In-depth Interviews
User Flow Analysis
Thematic and Quantitative Trend Analysis
Heuristic Evaluation & Experience Mapping
Interaction Design & Wireframing
Usability Testing (Moderated) & A/B Testing
Agile Visual Design